@california1683 I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything really. Just trying to educate folks on the absurdness of it. I get the impression that many so-called "experts" (CPAs, tax pros, EA, etc) are trying to talk people into making their taxes more complicated than they need to be. I think they do this for the sole purpose of keeping a client with them so they can make money off that client. I fully understand they are in business to make money. But I also understand that many of them are not in business to save "me" money. The more complicated they can make it seem, the better chance they have of keeping the client's business. That just one aspect of how I see things working in reality. But then, impressions and opinions are like another thing we all have too. 🙂
I've been doing this landlord stuff for close to 30 years now. Been there. Done that. Got the T-Shirt. Over those years I've learned a lot, and a majority of what I learned was in the school of hard knocks.
For some situations, it may make sense to put rentals into a business structure. For example, when you have two or more people who own rental property that are not married to each other, putting it into a partnership makes sense. Why? Because in my breadth of experience I've learned that the one ship practically guaranteed to sink before reaching port, is a Partnership. So with rental property in a partnership, if things fall apart (or I should say "when" things fall apart) specific legal procedures must be followed to dissolve the partnership - and accountability for the business resources is one of those things that must be dealt with on a legal front.
I'm also self-employed as a computer consultant (SCH C business) since 2005. So with the additional knowledge from the SCH C side of the house, I have a direct correlation between the SCH C stuff and the SCH E stuff. Both have their pros and cons when it comes to taxes.
